Trump 2.0

One wonders if there are no rational functional adults in the admin (like Mattis or Tillerson in the first turnip admin) who can redirect him when he gets one of those bees in his bonnet.

Now it's steam power for fighter jet catapults. Have they tried waving car keys over him? Pointing to squirrels?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.

The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.

The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier’s electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.

The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.

[Some of those ships apparently struggling with morale and basic sanitation per Tiassa recent report here]
 
exchemist said:
Do we know yet what Mar-a-Lago-faced bimbo will replace her? Someone with a proven record of mendacity and submissiveness to Trump.
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Perhaps his obsessed fan/aide/groupie (and catering box companion of choice) Natalie Harp? Picture worth thousand words:

TTWPH5ZDHFB5DOO7NJJVNRLEEE.jpg
 
TheVat said:
One wonders if there are no rational functional adults in the admin (like Mattis or Tillerson in the first turnip admin) who can redirect him when he gets one of those bees in his bonnet.

Now it's steam power for fighter jet catapults. Have they tried waving car keys over him? Pointing to squirrels?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.

The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.

The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier’s electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.

The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.

[Some of those ships apparently struggling with morale and basic sanitation per Tiassa recent report here]
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It will because the new system is electric. He probably thinks that makes it “woke”, like electric cars. (I’m not joking. I suspect that will be the actual reason.)

By the way we are reading that several sailors aboard Abraham Lincoln have tried to throw themselves overboard. 250 days at sea with no port call is unprecedented. One imagines the admirals know how bad this is for morale. I can only think Hegseth has overruled their pleas for rotating the carrier out and substituting another, to give the crew a break.
 
TheVat said:
Perhaps his obsessed fan/aide/groupie (and catering box companion of choice) Natalie Harp? Picture worth thousand words:

TTWPH5ZDHFB5DOO7NJJVNRLEEE.jpg
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In a gilt frame, no less.

But indeed, a blonde of bimbesque appearance. Though she doesn’t have the full botoxed Mar-a-Lago face, the curled up eyeliner gets her part of the way.
 
exchemist said:
It will because the new system is electric. He probably thinks that makes it “woke”, like electric cars. (I’m not joking. I suspect that will be the actual reason.)
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Dear Lord. I'm afraid you may be correct. I was trying to wrap my head around some historical explanation, perhaps a nostalgia for the era of steam power or something, but yes I think some synaptic wires have been crossing on a catapult as some sort of EV.
 
TheVat said:
Dear Lord. I'm afraid you may be correct. I was trying to wrap my head around some historical explanation, perhaps a nostalgia for the era of steam power or something, but yes I think some synaptic wires have been crossing on a catapult as some sort of EV.
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Remember that business about Stormy Daniels, sharks and electric boats? He has it in for electric boats too.
 
TheVat said:
One wonders if there are no rational functional adults in the admin (like Mattis or Tillerson in the first turnip admin) who can redirect him when he gets one of those bees in his bonnet.

Now it's steam power for fighter jet catapults. Have they tried waving car keys over him? Pointing to squirrels?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.

The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.

The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier’s electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.

The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.

[Some of those ships apparently struggling with morale and basic sanitation per Tiassa recent report here]
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The missing question from this is: which of Trump's cronies will get the contract to replace/install/refurbish things?

Does noone in the US military have the balls to tell Trump to, politely, **** off? Their own testing and reports undercut all of Trump's concerns, but, still, he's the Toddler-in-Chief. I guess if that had gilded all the systems in gold then Trump would have thought them the height of excellence??
 
TheVat said:
Dear Lord. I'm afraid you may be correct. I was trying to wrap my head around some historical explanation, perhaps a nostalgia for the era of steam power or something, but yes I think some synaptic wires have been crossing on a catapult as some sort of EV.
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Didn't he once say that you could effectively negate a magnet by dropping it in water, or some such???

Let me see... here ya go! Enjoy :)
 
Petey, What Have You Done

"Not just the Lincoln, MeidasTouch↱ reports:

… messages have poured in to MeidasTouch from military families and service members across multiple ships and even multiple branches. Taken together, they paint a picture of a crisis that extends well beyond a single carrier ....

.... One active-duty service member currently deployed alongside the Lincoln reached out to MeidasTouch to confirm that what's being reported is real, and that it isn't isolated to the Lincoln alone.

"They are not making anything up on the Lincoln,” the service member wrote. "We have it bad as well, but not quite as bad as them yet. It's only month 5 going on 6 for us, but eventually it will be bad. We have not seen land since being out here due to the Iran conflict.”

One parent whose son recently returned from eleven months aboard the Lincoln, after finishing five years with an F/A-18 fire squadron known as the "Top Hatters,” described conditions that had deteriorated badly by the time he got off the ship.

Early in the deployment, the ship's water system went down entirely, leaving sailors unable to shower or wash their clothes. When the system was eventually restored, showers had to be tightly rationed. Supplies ran low repeatedly, made worse when resupply ships were unable to bring materials back to the carrier. By the time this sailor left the ship, the parent said, toilets had backed up and overflowed, leaving roughly half a foot of human waste across restroom floors used by around 200 sailors at any given time.

A separate message came from someone whose brother's fiancée serves aboard the USS George H.W. Bush, a different carrier than the Lincoln ....

.... "They have virtually no food, water, or soap,” the message relayed. "They've been out at sea for 136 days with no end in sight. Morale is low and everyone is miserable. It's heartbreaking.”​

A parent describes his son's mental health as "destroyed", and pleads, "all he wants to do is come home to his room and his dogs. Please help him. He says he's tired, hungry, and scared"

Military families, in these United States, are close-knit and devoted tot he service, and now they are rallying each other to speak out for their servicemembers

A Navy wife explains, "My husband has told me that people who have more than 20 years of experience are saying this is the worst deployment they have ever experienced". Moreover, "when sevice members ask their commanding officer for updates about their situation, they have been told not to worry about updates and to 'just worry about today'".

That's not a strong message from the commmanding officers. But neither are they the ones creating this catastrophe. Petey, what have you done?

†​

Alex Cole↱ observes¹:

Navy has been functioning for what 250 years? And the US has been at war for 226 years of its existence. So the Navy should know how to manage feeding their people...they have before.

The question is, what did Hegseth do to fuck this up so bad that the Navy can't function properly?​

Americans generally have a strange relationship with their military; we support them despite not really believing in any of their wars since Vietnam, at least. We make excuses about the need to follow orders and moralize about dissent and even refusal without ever recognizing thresholds. My Lai can start to seem small and even meaningless compared to our manner of inflicting civilian death in later adventures², but no matter how much some angry leftist might foulmouth the baby killers, wedding bombers, and ally-killers of American reckless lethality, honestly, this one probably hasn't been on anybody's bingo card since, like, 1911, or so, and even still, I'm recalling an Anarchist.

The thing is, it's never supposed to be like this. Even those who despise what the military does, and especially those who grasp after every conspiracist potsherd to illuminate the evil, pretty much presume that we have figured out the logistics of quartering and provisioning troops and sailors. And, while, sure, there is a question about the long-term wisdom of turning landed mess halls into war-theatre food courts for private-sector branding, at least they were trying.

But this is just ... it's ... it's what happens when government doesn't work. Petey, what have you done?
____________________

Notes:

¹ A typographical error is corrected: Cole wrote "150 years" instead of "250", which is clearly a typo, and not a mistaken belief, per the subequent observation of "226 years of its existence".

² We might recall 2004, when thirty years of make-believe were finally vindicated because the story was a better match for supporting the troops. Consider that even an Lieutenant Colonel would, along the way, describe the telling of the truth as un-American. That's how much we're supposed to support the troops. The entire Swiftboat scandal was literally a demonstrable lie, but with the help of the local news they were finally able to make the story stick.​

Parnas, Aaron. "Not Just the Lincoln: Families Describe Human Waste, No Food, No End in Sight Across Multiple Ships". MeidasToucn News. 14 August 2026. MeidasNews.com. 14 August 2026. https://meidasnews.com/news/not-jus...no-food-no-end-in-sight-across-multiple-ships
 
And here he is on electric vehicles and tanks!

So yeah, I really think he wants to bring back steam catapults on the carriers because he thinks electric ones must be "woke" -_O

 
Tiassa said:
But this is just ... it's ... it's what happens when government doesn't work. Petey, what have you done?
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Seems like the real consequences of bimbocracy are making themselves known. Appoint a manifestly unqualified Fox News personality and drunk with essentially no work experience managing a large organization and you get this level of dysfunction.


exchemist said:
And here he is on electric vehicles and tanks!
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Drunk on a Barstool mode. It is good to know, per the Shark rant also posted, that he's said, "I'll take electrocution every single time."
Sarkus said:
Does noone in the US military have the balls to tell Trump to, politely, **** off?
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James Mattis. The secretary of defense who resigned after 2 years of pushing back against the turnip's harebrained impulses, whereupon the turnip forced him to leave several weeks before his resignation date so that he (the turnip) could say that he'd fired Mattis.
 
TheVat said:
And press secretary and prolific liar Katherine Leavitt is leaving her post at months end. One of her more hilarious assertions has been that Turnip's policies have made the country "more affordable."
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Yep. She's claiming she was on the decoy plane, but I have a feeling that's what led to her departure.

"He did WHAT???"
 
Sarkus said:
"Out" as in "no longer in her job", not "off the plane".

Anti-trump supporters should troll him by pushing those catering trollies around near his golf courses / home / other location as appropriate. :)
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Or put ear muffs (and diapers) on trolleys in other locations.
 
#WhatItTakes | #WhatTheyVotedFor​

A formerly conservative take from nevertrump former conservative Bill Kristol↱ at The Bulwark:

On the evening of August 6, in a two-hundred-person meeting at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, families confronted acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao and other Navy leaders about the situation. Cao is acting secretary because his predecessor, John Phelan, was fired in April of this year after repeatedly clashing with Hegseth. This is the same Cao who, after retiring from Navy service as a captain in 2021, ran for Congress in 2022 and for the Senate in 2024 in Virginia, and had received some national attention when he said "witchcraft" had taken over the city of Monterey, California. In 2024, in response to a question about military recruiting, Cao said, "What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat 'em, and ask for seconds. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars." This presumably is what got him a job as under secretary of the Navy in Hegseth's Pentagon, and got him promoted—even though Phelan had so little confidence in Cao that he routinely excluded him from briefings and meetings.

Cao didn't reassure families at the meeting. Nor did an unidentified representative of the Navy brass, who was asked about a sailor who had reportedly jumped off the Lincoln a few days earlier. The official responded by saying it wasn't clear if the sailor had fallen or jumped, and that in any case the sailor was back on board and was "fine." This met with incredulity and jeers in the room. It now turns out the sailor had jumped on August 3, and in fact was in the water for about an hour before he was rescued. Navy officials didn't contact his wife about the incident until four days after her husband jumped overboard—until the day after the town hall in San Diego. And this week, the Navy Times reported that several Lincoln sailors have tried to go overboard during their extended deployment.

Yesterday, Hegseth pushed back on the reports of poor conditions aboard the Lincoln.

"We make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment," he told reporters during a visit to Panama.

Nicole Conrad's son is serving on the Lincoln. Conrad says she would like Hegseth to visit the Lincoln and see the conditions for the roughly 5,000 sailors and marines onboard. "Go visit," she said. "If you want to sit here and you want to say that Trump is taking care of the soldiers, go yourself." Mrs. Conrad, by the way, says she voted for Trump ....

.... The United States Navy is a large and capable organization. Its budget is close to $300 billion a year. It is capable of adequately resupplying an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. It is capable of acting in response to reports of conditions endangering sailors' well-being. It is capable of managing its ships and taking care of its personnel.​

Just to be clear, they hired the anti-witchcraft crusader to run the military.

But, hey, at least they're being mean to transgender. There's always that.

And, yeah, this is an example of why you can't just dabble↗ in this stuff. Maybe they'll advance your boutique hatred. Maybe they'll try to kick out trans service members. Maybe they'll stiff women on promotions. Maybe they'll just say no to black people for you. And maybe those hits feel good, but this is the price; this is what it takes, and it's a package deal. So it's one thing to cry to yourself that you're not a bigot, but this is what happens when you get your way.
____________________

Notes:

Kristol, William. "Of sailors and Scoundrels". The Bulwark. 14 August 2026. TheBulwark.com. 15 August 2026. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-tr...coln-aircraft-carrier-overboard-iran-war-navy
 
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